Can you give suggestions for a major combing art and technology?

[mamato4]

Dd is currently a sophomore.  She's very artistic; takes art classes with a local art school that teaches using the "classical" method.  She is also very academically-inclined and enjoys taking harder classes because she likes to learn.  She has outside class grades and SAT/SAT II/AP exams scores to back up her work.

 

Recently, I got her books on website design and she has really taken to it.  She's normally not a fan of spending a lot of time in front of a computer screen but she's been at it learning how to build her own website.  I guess she likes it better than just learning C++ or Java as building a website has an artistic component to it.

 

So can anyone give suggestions as to what studies in college are out there that would combine her artistic side along with her ability to tackle difficult subjects?  Is there an engineering or technology field that can make use of her artistic abilities?  We do want to focus on a major where she has real job prospects.  We do live in the Northeast part of the country where art students are in abundance. 

 

Suggestions about what classes to take now in her high school are also welcome.

 

Thank you!

[Melissa B]

That sounds like a Digital Arts & Sciences degree. At our local university that degree is part of the engineering program.

[G5052]

Yes, a digital arts degree.  One of the schools in the commuting area has that as a specialty within the art program.  You get a B.A. or B.F.A.  A friend of ours is graduating in May with the B.A. at that school, and she's taken classes in web design, printing/typography, graphic arts, and video for online applications.  She already has leads from multiple employers who are looking for that type of graduate.  She was a community college graduate with double degrees in fine arts and administrative support technology (which is a combination of IT and business).

 

One of mine is leaning that way, and we are going to fit in several years of art, a semester of web design (probably dual enrollment), and a basic computer literacy class which includes Microsoft Office.

 

[MBM]

My daughter has an electrical engineering degree and is also artistic (but no degree). She worked for five years as a consultant and is now in a graduate program that integrates art, technology and business. The jobs students take are all over the place. My daughter would like to eventually design science programs and exhibits for museums or schools. She will also be applying for a position at Disney as an Imagineer. Her specialty is combining electronics with textiles and other solid materials to create light effects. These are graduate programs that integrate different fields and universities tend to have different names for it. Some undergrad programs might offer something similar. Anyway, it sounds like your daughter might want to consider something like this.

[SebastianCat]

Architecture or graphic design?

[Brenda in MA]

RIT (Rochester, NY) has a variety of technical as well as art-related majors. They also have a coop program, which is a good way for a student to get a head start on the job search. You might look at their offerings and see if anything looks interesting.

 

Brenda

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Funny but I was chatting with Rutabaga this morning about how his practical art bent (drawing as well as modeling, sewing and sculpting) and interest in tech and robotics made me think he might be interested in prosthetics design.